NASA 'fire towers' in space watch for wildfires on the rise

e! Science News: The Black Forest wildfire this June was one of the most destructive in Colorado history, in terms of homes lost. It started close to houses and quickly spread through the ponderosa pine canopies on the rolling hills near Colorado Springs. The wildfire destroyed 500 homes in the first 48 hours and killed two people. Hot, dry and windy weather played a role in that wildfire, said Don Smurthwaite, spokesperson with the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho.

"Fire seasons are getting longer, western regions are getting drier, and more people are living closer to fire-prone areas." Fire scientists have observed those conditions becoming more prevalent across the United States.

As the western United States enters what is typically the most active time of its fire season, scientists, firefighters and residents are keeping close watch on what's burning -- not just this year, but over the long term. As temperatures warm and weather patterns change, scientists from NASA, universities and other government agencies are putting their satellite observation and computer modeling capabilities to work. They are grappling with what the future landscape of fire will look like in the American West.

"Over the last 30 years we have seen an increase in hot and dry conditions that promote fire activity," said Doug Morton, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "And across the western U.S. and Alaska, satellites show an increase in the area that burns each year over that same time period."

As of Aug. 8 this year, wildfires have burned more than 2.5 million acres in the United States. Large wildfires are mainly driven by natural factors including the availability of fuel (vegetation), wind, and ignition sources from lightning and humans.

For more than a decade, instruments on Terra and Aqua, two of NASA's flagship Earth-observing satellites, have scanned the surface of our planet for fires. An instrument on both satellites, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), has revolutionized what scientists know about fire's role in land cover change, ecosystem processes and the global carbon cycle by allowing researchers to map characteristics of the global distribution of fires in remarkable detail....

US Army pilot and crew release water with a helicopter bucket over fires in Black Forest, Colo., June 12, 2013. The Black Forest Fire started June 11, 2013, northeast of Colorado Springs, Colo., burning scores of homes and forcing large-scale evacuations.